


The Whole of the Law

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: Ancestral Nights [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Mythology/Religion, Alternia-Focused, Backstory, Ethics, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Quadruple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 04:38:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2455004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cult of the Signless Sufferer has no clergy, no rites, and only one rule.  Latula Pyrope is five sweeps old when she first learns it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole of the Law

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was inspired by the 10/5/14 [15_minute_ficlets](http://15_minute_ficlets.dreamwidth.org) word #206.

The cult of the Signless Sufferer has no clergy and no rites. The only rule is this: treat others as they want to be treated. Not as you'd want to be treated. Not as you think they _should_ want to be treated. You ask, you listen, and you respect what they fucking well say. And they will do the same to you.

It's the simplest and hardest code in the universe.

Latula Pyrope is five sweeps when she first learns the rule. She crashes a street fight in defense of an orphaned wiggler, finds herself fighting alongside a brownblood ghost-speaker, and kind of overhears the lowblood giving a pep talk to the wiggler as she's cleaning her swords. They shoot her wary looks when she pops up from behind a jumble of broken crates, so she figures she'd better make herself scarce. She doesn't want to -- she wants to stay and listen and ask ten thousand questions 'cause she's never heard _anything_ about this rebellion before -- but she can add two and three to make five, and it's obvious they want her gone.

You treat others the way they want, not the way that's most convenient for you. She'll never get anywhere if she breaks that rule right from the start.

So she smiles and drops her contact info and ambles away without asking anything in return.

She never does hear back from that brownblood. But she knows that there's a secret, now. She's knows the empire is covering up something big, something explosive. And she's always been good at tracking secrets to their source.

Latula Pyrope is nine sweeps when she forges her own set of Irons. She doesn't think she can hold to the rule, not all the way. There are some people who need to be punished, whether they can understand their guilt or not. There are some crimes she can't forgive. But she thinks the Sufferer would understand. Even he cursed the Empire in the end. Even he knew that sometimes you need to make the whole world burn.

The cult of the Signless Sufferer has no clergy and no rites. She's the only one who decides how to live her life, how to follow the one rule. She's going to cleanse Alternia in the Sufferer's name.

Latula Pyrope flies Pyralspite into the heart of the Legislacerators' training compound and dares them to turn her away.


End file.
